Last night Allison and I went out and had a super fun girly night, the kind that I used to have so many of and began to kind of take for granted and now kind of miss. We talked about boys and careers and stuff like that. Then, on my way home I was like, I need yogurt for tomorrow. Apparently, I also needed a huge piece of carrot cake, because I bought that too. Actually, I bought about twenty dollars worth of groceries and I have no idea how. There's still no food in my house. Except Cheerios. Even though I have not been graced with two new elementary-school-aged children like Hannah, I have Cheerios. I love them. And they aren't so bad for you. I eat them with soy milk, which makes it all seem better. :)

So, I come home with the twenty dollars of groceries and proceed to sit in my bed and eat the cake. And then I go to sleep. Only, I sleep so, so, so badly, like wake up every fifteen minutes in a total panic badly, which can only be blamed on the cake. Bad cake! Bad cake!

Now I have to go and read to the undergraduates. And there is NOT ONE MONKEY in my new novel. What am I going to do? How can I read from a novel that is monkey-less? I am going to have to write one in. It's the only way. It might be the only thing that inspires me to revise the thing because right now I am oh-so-confused and petrified. That might have been the actual cause of the not sleeping: novel panic. Is that a disease you can get? Because I think I have it.

Tomorrow I am making a kugel. So, I'll let you know how that goes...but the real question is: why do a lot of recipes for kugel have pineapple in them?! They did NOT have pineapple in Russia. Raisins, maybe. Cottage cheese, possibly. Egg noodles, clearly. But pineapple? People, please.

So, I've finished the Harry Potter book and oh, how good it was. I even dreamed about it last night after I finished it. I wish there were more! It also has inspired me to finally finish my draft of my book. Which really is almost done. Just a few more scenes. One of which is really only about two sentences. I will be done soon. I swear it.

Now I am back to Bleak House which is also good (and oddly hilarious), but in a very different way than Harry P. I did have a realization when I was reading Harry that it is OK to read books that aren't all GOOD for you. I mean, I've been reading a lot of boring literary fiction lately and while it does give a certain satisfaction, there's nothing like being enveloped by a book which is, in my opinion, less likely to happen with something super serious and art-y (or maybe I'm just lowbrow...who knows). I guess you've got to have your vegetables AND some mashed potatoes too.

Speaking of food, in other news, this website Groceteria.com is awesome. It's about the history of grocery stores! This is something that has become increasingly fascinating to me as I've moved to another part of the country and all the grocery stores are DIFFERENT. What other stores are as regional in the US as grocery stores? Did you New York folks even know there was such a THING as a Harris Teeter or a Food Lion?! Well, I go to them all the time!!! Anyway, Groceteria has a great article on the A&P chain, of which there was one in my hometown. And it mentions Waldbaums! Waldbaums! Remember that? (Apparently they still sort of exist because they have a website.) I think there was a Waldbaums in Tarrytown or maybe it was Yonkers that had a crazy conveyer belt system. Is that right? You put your groceries on the conveyer belt and it moved them out of the store for you? Something nutty like that. Anyway, Groceteria.com is cool and has lots of old photos. Check it out.

I think just the fact that my mind knows that it should be on a diet makes it rebel against what it is supposed to do. This is what happened: I had just spent two days being SO GOOD and only eating salads while Matt ate fries and things that looked delicious. And then we went out drinking. Oh, how I should never do this, and then I ate both one and a half mini burgers (they're sooo good at The Cellar) AND a slice of pizza. Matt said he had never seen a person eat a slice of pizza so quickly before. He said, "It was like you hadn't eaten in weeks." There's nothing like pizza. I honestly could give up all things sweet, but never, ever pizza.

Maybe I do need to do the Nutrisystem. But it sounds kind of gross when you really find out about it. They say the food is super salty and they send you nasty things like sloppy joes. I don't want to eat a 300 calorie sloppy joe. That sounds like a horrible existence.

I guess I just have to stick with the salads. The actual plan is that I'm oddly hoping that my super busy teaching schedule this semester will make me so nervous that I won't be able to eat. And yet, school starts tomorrow and I'm still super hungry. So, I guess that's not going to work.

I swear this isn't going to turn into a diet blog. And I have lost two of the five pounds that I was supposed to lose this month, so I guess I'm doing okay. I just have to avoid the pizza. I should make a t-shirt.

Okay, I'm finishing this draft of the book for real TODAY even if it kills me.

Yesterday was the last official day of classes for the semester. I still have a paper to finish and essays to grade, but I'm less worried about all that than I was at this time last week.

The very good news of the day is that I discovered some Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme in my closet and I swear I am going to get my nails looking decent. It's become ridiculous. People who are almost twenty-eight years old should be able to stop biting their nails.

I finally got a chance to write today for the first time in a long while. Oh how good it felt. I'm also reading The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud, discovered at the library. Sometimes it bugs me that the library only has crap, but the good thing about it is that when there's something good there, they only want to take out J.D. Robb books anyway, so I don't have to wait.

I realize that most of my diet is made up of food that is generally eaten by kindergarten students: cheerios and peanut butter sandwiches. With some coffee and red wine thrown in for good measure. Not quite sure what that means about me, but it forced me to make chicken cutlets with spinach, zucchini and pesto past for dinner and to bake a red velvet cake. Still have to make the cream cheese frosting for it, but this time I'm going to measure the water correctly so that it's actual frosting as opposed to a bowl of sugary water which was what it was last time.

I don't have too many hilarious things to report. I did totally wipe out while I was running the other day which was entertaining, I think, to the kids who were watching me while waiting for the bus. I'm okay, just a little scraped up. Scraped knees hurt! This is not helping, however, with the image of me as kindergarten student.

Because I just randomly decided to make a banana bread. And it's good. And I had all the ingredients in my house to do it. That's really freaky. The reason I had all the ingredients is that I'm PLANNING to make a pumpkin cake later this weekend for my students.

Yeah, the world has ended.

Maybe it's the change in barometric pressure caused by that freaky storm we had yesterday. Or maybe my job is just so boring that cooking is better than my job. Or maybe those nasty bananas on my counter were really just starting to drive me crazy.

What have I become?! I think I've been invaded by some sort of alien other Accidental Southern Belle who cooks. Freaky.

For some reason even though I am a total caffeine junkie I have just not been wanting coffee this week. So, I've been drinking tea, but all of my tea has been embarassingly weak. Very unsatisfying. And then I realized that ALL the tea in my little pantry is literally four years old. Four year old tea is NOT GOOD. I need to throw it all away.

The real question is, why was I MOVING boxes of TEA from New York to North Carolina. Even when I moved last year, the tea was old. Now it is REALLY old.

Joanna Scott: Follow Me: A NovelA truly lovely novel about family secrets and the unexpected path that life takes us on. I am amazed at what Joanna Scott can pack into one sentence, one paragraph. It is more than I could imagine doing in a whole book. She is a master.

Lionel Shriver: We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel (P.S.)There are some books, like Native Son, that you recognize as good but it is difficult to say that you LIKE because they are so utterly disturbing that your heart aches for them. This is how I feel about this book. I see the goodness, but I can't say I liked this book. In fact, reading it was excruciating. (For those who don't know, it is from the point of view of the mother of a school shooter and chronicles his evil life.) On the other hand, I couldn't look away. I can't say I recommend it because the experience is just unpleasant. But on the other hand, it is fascinating. That is all.

Luis Alberto Urrea: Into the Beautiful North: A NovelI have to admit that I never got into Urrea's other books, although I love the KIND of books he writes. But this one grabbed me from the start and did not let go. He is able to find beauty in ugliness in a way that I really admire.

Lucinda Rosenfeld: I'm So Happy for You: A novel about best friendsThis is one of those books that as I was reading it, I was thinking: "why aren't I smart enough to write like this?" She's able to balance really lovely writing with a very relatable plot. I mean, there is an almost-too-real quality to this one that made me have to look away. And yet, you can't. Because all of her characters are so great and in so much trouble that you must, must, must know what happens to them.

Michael Connelly: The ScarecrowSuch a good read. Michael Connelly is able to weave together an amazing (and super intelligent) plot with the decline of the newspaper industry and a creepy cyberstalker. There's even a bit of a love story. Something for everyone. Read this one. For real.

Tess Callahan: April & Oliver: A NovelWhat a moving and suspenseful story of relationships and how childhood mistakes/experiences can influence one's adult life. And the ending is just gorgeous. This is not a story for the faint of heart though, it's as much about love as it is about violence and also about where the two converge. I adored it and am about to read it again because there is a symmetry to the story that I think would do well for a second reading.

George Pelecanos: The Way HomeAm constantly amazed by the depth of Pelecanos' writing. His characters are so real, their dilemmas so relatable. Anyone who has had a child who has ever gotten in any trouble will relate to the parents in this novel. And any person who has ever given their parents any grief will relate as well. SO, anyone who is a child of parents or a parent of a child should read this. (That means everyone, right?)